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Bullish or bearish you need to get risk/reward right

With the Federal Reserve electing to taper for a second month in a row and emerging markets on the brink of crisis gold markets have come back into focus. Buyers have come into the market in 2014 driving the price of the precious metal up nearly 5% amidst emerging market concerns and the worst January for U.S. equities in years. With all of the uncertainty in the market traders may be looking for safe haven plays in metals. Gold has been relatively volatile over that period so traders looking for opportunity must be mindful of their reward to risk setups. In times of increased volatility a trader must widen their stops thus increasing the levels of risk they must assume when taking a trade. Options on futures can help a trader manage risk by allowing them to set up well defined risk vs. reward setups. An options trader also benefits from not having to consider stops, as options offer natural risk management as the price of an option can never be less than zero.

Looking at examples of both bullish and bearish setups in gold we can see that options offer a trader superior risk management and better reward to risk ratios. Looking at April options we can calculate implied upside and downside closes on expiration. Using the price of the at-the-money straddle we can then center an options strategy on these targets. Calculating targets this way works better than technical methods used to develop price targets. With futures trading around $1,255, the April 1255 straddle is trading at 58.80. Using this straddle price we can calculate implied closes of $1,313.80 and 1198.20. Using these targets we can now set up options trades.